There are 2 ways you can solve this:
1. Change the cell format type to Text (select the Home tab, in the number
group, select the down arrow next to the general box and select 'Text'.
2. Just put an apostraphy in front of the month like this: 'January 2009

"Orrie" wrote:

Hi,
I maintain a list of new members to a club, and enter the new list of
new members for each month. I just want to separate the new members
for each month by entering the month's name in a cell. This will not
be used in any calculations. So, each month I need to enter the name
of the month and the year as text, like this January 09 (or January
2009 would do as well.) But after I type it in and move to the next
cell, Excel 2003 switches the entry to this format: 9-Jan

How can get Excel to accept what I enter and treat as simply text, not
a value. It is not necessary to use the month and year in any
calculations.

Thank you.

Orrie